


and we'll be the stars

by Macremae



Category: Wooden Overcoats
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, add-on to another fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macremae/pseuds/Macremae
Summary: Pembe and September hold a stakeout. Well, really, September holds a stakeout, and Pembe is just sort of there. She usually is.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so a whiiiiiiile back thatgirlnamedeleanor posted a chapyard fic, and since i like to shove my ocs into everything, i asked if i could. they, foolishly said yes.

_This_ , Pembe thinks, and knows, really, _is a stupid idea_.

 

And really, it is. It’s risky and frivolous and totally, utterly pointless in every sense of the word. It’s also September’s plan, which automatically makes it a bad one.

 

However, when September has a plan, there is no stopping it. It simply cannot be done. Pembe has tried. Lord _knows_ she’s tried. And yet: failure. Plus, September gave her that look with the puppy dog eyes and the pouty lip, which tends to cause an absence of things like common sense, and blood in her brain. It’s really very annoying. Pembe should do something about it, but there tends to be one big roadblock in the way: she doesn’t really want to.

 

You see, during the summer between Years Nine and Ten, just before September turned fourteen, Pembe’s family went on holiday to visit her father’s relatives in the South Pacific. (Her grandmother on her mother’s side had advised that now would not be a good time to pay a visit to Iraq, and any idiot who saw the news would agree.) For just under three months, Pembe had been sweating out of her everything on a tiny little island in the middle of nowhere, and forced to enjoy nature. This had involved the discovery that the cliffs and rock faces of Piffling Vale were tame compared to those of Romblon, and Pembe’s subsequent delight at this fact. She had spent a majority of the time finding the highest places to go, and giving her mother half a heart attack a day, leading to the development of quite a bit of muscle, which Pembe harbored mixed feelings about. On the one hand, no one outside her immediate family knew about the whole “trans thing”. They bought her colorful, summery dresses and gossiped to her about the local boys without batting an eye. And that sort of figure did look rather fetching on her. On the other, though… there was only so much estrogen could do, and a few boyish-looking traits had been clawing their way to the surface with the arrival of puberty. September, however, hadn’t seemed to mind when she returned home, browner than ever and with a new appreciation for the icy winters of the English Channel.

 

And that was the problem, wasn’t it: September. While Pembe had been gone, the other girl’s gangly, birdlike frame had changed rather dramatically. And by dramatically, well… September had curves now, it seemed. Lots of them. Pembe didn’t mind, of course, which was the biggest problem. She really, really, _really_ didn’t mind. In fact, she had found that her face grew an alarming shade of red whenever September bounced up and down with excitement, which was quite often. This had led to the realization that things she had been doing for years- smiling fondly when September set off on one of her tangents, noticing how pretty she looked when her eyes sparkled just so, laying with September’s head in her lap as they talked about nothing- was not something that normal best friends did. This led to a second realization that she was disgustingly in love with September, and had been for quite some time. Which was worrying, because there was no way in heaven, hell or the veil beyond that September felt the same way.

 

Love is love, however, and Pembe cannot say no to that.

 

Which is why, for the past four hours, they’ve been staked out just beneath the window into the hotel room Mr, Funn and Mr. Chapman are sharing (it’s a long story), listening to absolutely nothing.

 

Granted, that nothing comes with a lot of underlying romantic and sexual tension, but still.

 

“September,” Pembe says exasperatedly, “I’m dying.”

 

“No you’re not, now hush,” September replies in a hushed tone.

 

“No- no I really am,” Pembe continues. “Y’know why?”

 

“No.”

 

“Because we’ve been sitting here for four-”

 

“No.”

 

“-bloody-”

 

“No.”

 

“-hours-”

 

“No.”

 

“-and y’know what’s happened? Not a damn thing!”

 

September frowns harder and adjusts her binoculars. “Well then, if you’re well and truly dying, Pem, at least you’re in the right company.”

 

Pembe sighs. “Why are we doing this, again? The last time you tried to meddle with these two, they fell down a ditch. And I got all wet. _Again_.”

 

“I’ve told you three times already!”

 

“I want to hear it again. Maybe then you’ll realize how utterly stupid it sounds.”

 

“Fine,” September huffs, putting down her binoculars and turning to face Pembe. “One bed, plus two people who obviously like each other but don’t have the guts to say it, plus my chance to get the scoop on this and _finally_ have Piffling Matters take my stories seriously for once, equals a stakeout. Happy?”

 

“Do you think it’s telling and kind of sad that these two idiots are the biggest story our village has to offer right now?” Pembe muses, folding her arms behind her head as she stares up at the sky.

 

“Once you have a psycho serial killer murdering residents one by one, there isn’t really anywhere to go but down,” September replies, resuming her snoop stoop. “Besides, half the place has a betting pool on them anyway.”

 

“Okay, I take it back. _That’s_ the saddest thing about this situation.” Pembe pauses, then asks, “What are they doing now?”

 

“Chapman went into the bathroom to take a shower, Funn’s sitting on the bed staring at the door. Oh! He’s a little pink. Wait, no, now it’s at least magenta. D’you think he’s thinking-”

 

“Yes,” Pembe cuts her off, not wanting to follow that train of thought, “whatever you’re thinking, yes.”

 

“Oh. Well in that case, I’d say we’ll have this thing wrapped up by ten or so!”

 

“Thank God.”

 

Suddenly, September gasps. “What?” Pembe asks, and scrambles up to look through the window. Funn is now in front of the bathroom door, hand poised to knock. 

 

“Holy shit,” September whispers excitedly, “is he actually gonna-”

 

Before she can finish her thought, the door suddenly opens, and Chapman is standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Funn immediately goes a shade of red Pembe’s only worn on her lips for school plays, while September lets out a tiny squeal of delight and dives for her notepad. Pembe sneaks a fond look at her, and resumes her cloud-watching position. 

 

“Holy sweet baby Jesus and all the Christmas critters!” September squeaks, writing furiously. 

 

Pembe snorts. “Sep, you are way too invested in this. What if they decide to sleep in Funn’s room? Then it’ll just be louder, and you’ve made your own problem worse.”

 

“Nah, his sister’d kill ‘em.”

 

“True. Besides, sleeping right next to a funeral parlor is a problem on it’s own.”

 

September continues writing and peeking, while Pembe lets her mind wander, and eventually begins to doze. She wakes up a short while later to find September slumped next to the window, snoring softly. Still half-asleep and not really thinking about it, Pembe rolls over so that her head is in September’s lap, and drifts off again.

 

\--

 

Light poking at her eyes eventually wakes her, and Pembe sits up groggily, lazily adjusting her hijab, which had become crooked during the night. September stirs next to her, before immediately snapping awake like the insufferable morning person she is.

 

“Pembe?” she whispers, noticing the open window, “Shit, did we stay overnight?”

 

Pembe hums in response and works out a crick in her neck. “‘S okay,” she mumbles, wishing very much for coffee, “I fell asleep before you anyway. Used your lap as a pillow, if y’don’t mind.”

 

“Oh. No, it’s okay,” says September, and proceeds to do the opposite of what Pembe expects: she doesn’t move.

 

Curious as to why “The Plan” is now temporarily forgotten, Pembe moves so that she’s sitting right next to her, shoulders pressed together. She checks her watch, grinning a little at the time for a moment, before taking the opportunity of September’s temporary pause to just look. 

 

It's then that September notices Pembe staring.,"What is it?" she asks

 

"Nothing," Pembe replies quickly, cursing herself inwardly for being so damn obvious.

 

"No," she insists, "you're staring at me. What's wrong?"

 

"Nothing!" Pembe exclaims, going the tiniest bit pink. "-Is wrong, that is. I mean... well, it's stupid."

 

"Pembe, c’mon. I'm the one who says stupid things, not you."

 

Pembe looks at September for a long moment, then relents. "Well, it's just..." she pauses and looks towards the cliffs in the distance, "it's 8:32."

 

"Huh?" September asks, looking up at her.

 

A small smile crosses Pembe’s face."Every day when we walk to school, at 8:32, the sun rises just above the lighthouse, and hits the world just right, and... and you turn gold. You get this little halo around your head, and the first dust of the day floats around it, and it's... beautiful."

 

September is quiet at this, and Pembe swears filthily in her head for not knowing when to shut up and turn her heart off, until September asks almost timidly, “Every day?”  
Pembe startles a little at this, but turns to look her right in the eyes, and answers softly, “Every day.”

 

She suddenly feels something covering her hand, and knows, from the deepest part of her, exactly what it is. September is looking up at her with those big, wide eyes, made even bigger by her glasses, her long lashes brushing the lenses. For the first time in her life, September Edgewood hesitates at something, but even that doesn’t last very long as she leans forward and-

 

Oh.

 

 _Oh_.

 

This is a first kiss, in all it’s fluttering, frightening glory. This is gentle, so gentle, and tentative, as if both are scared that other might turn away. This is soft lips learning for the first time, noses bumping awkwardly, and the scent of morning dew and mown grass filling the air. This, Pembe knows, is higher than she’ll ever climb, further than she’ll ever reach. This, September knows, is every question she ever wanted answered. 

 

This is spring rain and brushing the sky and gold, gold, gold.

 

(Later, September will learn exactly what happened while they were kissing, and spit fire at the fact that she missed the entire reason they were there in the first place. Pembe will helpfully explain to her why it was totally worth it.

 

September will agree.)


End file.
